It is told of Melville Stone that a friend of his father when he saw his son carrying a cane, inquired for what particular failing he was using it. Our own American Paris, that we flippantly or affectionately refer to as “Gotham” or “Little Old New York” has broken the tradition and lifted the New England ban from the walking cane. Attacks blows are received on the lower part while “parries, slips and covers” are done with either ends perhaps indicating that the lower end is used mostly for static blocking but that both ends can be used to parry and riposte. The system of blocking and parrying is briefly described in a rather confusing way. The techniques present mostly attacks, and the style seems to favor a succession of quick strikes to disable an opponent rather than go for more powerful ones.
It is nonetheless a very interesting style which brings further details on the practice of vernacular stick fighting.
Unless further information is found, the origin of this style remains a mystery. It could also be related to the “shillalah” techniques described in Donald Walker’s “Defensive exercises”. The aim of this game was to hit the adversary on the head, as in singlestick. The system could also refer to early types of colonial cudgel play as described in “Colonial days” From “In colonial days: Selections from the Youth’s companion” 1908. Unfortunately, I could not find more information on the man. Pearson is normally a name associated with England although some members of the family did move to Ireland in the 1600’s. Pearson never makes even a single allusion to the Irish shillelagh and talks at length on British legends such as Robin Hood and Little John. In this article the author, James I Pearson presents his method for using a walking stick which he calls an “ancient art of defense”.īut is it Irish? Maybe but nothing in the text really allows to prove it. It seems that rather Hammet did like many authors before and after him and borrowed techniques directly from another source, in this case, the January 20th edition of the San francisco Chronicle of 1924. Had Hammet learned boiscin somehow or observed it? Credit Tony Wolf When this excerpt came to the attention of the HEMA community, it was instantly compared to Irish stick, mostly for its grip. Hemmet portraiying The Thin Man, one of the characters he created The Pearson style of walking stick as a weapon, or “stick control” first became known to us through a 1924 short story called “Nightmare town” by Dashiel Hammet. This new source which I am presenting today is perhaps one of them. But there are also styles of stick fighting from other countries which present similar elements.
Both of them present characteristics which are presented in other sources as well as in the traditions. As I indicated in my latest article on Irish stick fighting, outide of the traditionnal styles there exists perhaps only two documentary sources which would allow us to reconstruct a workable style of bataireacht.